Smith applauds call to open Family Court

The Law Commission's proposal to allow media into the Family Court is a welcome change, United Future's justice spokesman, Murray Smith, said today.

In its report, Delivering Justice for All, the Commission recommends that the Family Court continue to be closed to the general public, but that discretion be given to judges to permit support persons to attend, and accredited news media be able to attend and report on family proceedings.

Mr Smith said that, while Australian experiences suggest that the right of media to attend and report on family cases is not widely used and has little apparent impact on cases, the principles of openness and accountability mean that media should be allowed to observe and report on proceedings unless there are very good reasons not to.

The restriction on publishing the identity of participants where children or domestic violence were involved was a good example of a situation where a restriction was justified, he said.

Allowing the media to observe cases would provide an independent oversight of the approaches taken by the court to family matters and hopefully lead to more detached, and therefore more accurate, discussion of the issues that arise, Mr Smith said.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>